Polio, I think you forgot polio. You are supposed to blame me and conservatives for polio too in that shtick.
It is obligatory now to bring some homosexual angle into everything as someone did here. I just responded to that, after responding to the original topic. I didn’t start it.
One single argument? What better example of the conceit and arrogance of liberals? You are advocating the change - homosexual legitimization, an extreme, radical, and fundamental change. I just want status quo or status quo ante. I’m not obligated to justify anything. When you have a society that performs dramatically better than others, YOU better have a good reason for tampering with the rules and it better be damned good if the cost is moving from a standard where you can go for decades at a time without even hearing of homosexuality to having it forced on your attention daily.
On the original topic, I can see the 21st century has no clue what responsibility even means. Firstly, as anyone can see, go from the theoretical level to the field level and pregnancy is never “not an issue.” Disease alone is still, on the field level, reason enough why everyone should have sex with just one other person. Sex should be part of the most powerful and sublime bond between people in the most fulfilling relationship in their lives. Premarital sex instantly cuts that potential way down, for four people. I think introducing a comparative or competitive factor into the marital relationship is responsible for much of the hostility, spouse abuse, and divorce - in other words a vast amount of unhappiness and misery. Non-marital sex drastically affects your later relationships to your children. What are you going to tell them when the time comes if they ask? It drastically wounds the relationship with parents and other loved ones. There are dozens of good reasons the Victorians were right the 21st century is determined to not see. We don’t legalize murder just because some can’t abide by the law. And if we did, it wouldn’t reduce the tragedy. The old rules worked best for the best quality most self disciplined people and that redounded through many routes to the benefit of society. Conversely…..

Well RG21, what would you suggest as method to suppressing these apparently naturally occurring behaviors? I mean there were, and still are, plenty of laws,here and around the world to try and prevent these things.
Obviously yours and many others disapproval, and simple rejection of these behaviors is not enough to stop it.
Plus, look at the multitude of people who have preached in a position of authority, be they lawmakers, executives or clergy, against these behaviors, and then were exposed to be fervent practitioners of some of the most craven acts of sexuality.
Child rapists, prostitution, closeted homosexuals, child porn users, adulterers etc.
In this light it would seem you are a minority amongst your conservative colleagues. I mean these revelations come out every day, Congressman, School teachers, judges, priests, police!!

Re. STDs, well, you’re in luck, rg21. So long as you avoid having sex with a lot of different people, and so long as your mate does so too, you have nothing to fear. (Perhaps you should be arguing with your mate, not with people with whom you will never have sex). On the other hand, you do have something to fear by being in enclosed public places with lots of people, e.g., you can get the flu and die. So perhaps we should make it illegal to have large public gatherings?

Re. the “status quo ante”, sorry but any decision needs an argument, including the decision to preserve the status quo ante. It’s a fallacy to assert that because something is traditional that therefore it is good. It was recently traditional to illegalize inter-racial marriage and women voting. It was also traditional to enslave africans. In all these cases it was asserted that changing them was “extreme, radical and fundamental”, and indeed many of the people asserting them considered that changing the “status quo” was repugnant, even disgusting and repulsive.

Your extreme reaction is comparable to that of people in the antebellum south when presented with the possibility that a black man could become president. After all, then they’d have to hear about black america and have it forced on their attention daily.

RG, you have not considered discussing any of the points brought up, you are not interested in discussing anything, you are interested in spreading ad hominum attacks and vitriol, and living in your ideal perfection of the Victorian age, which only existed in bad romance novels and your imagination.

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Church; where sheep congregate to worship a zombie on a stick that turns into a cracker on Sundays…

Mary Roach is the author of Stiff: The curious Lives of Human Cadavers and Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife. Her writing has appeared in Salon, Wired, National Geographic, New Scientist, and the New York Times Magazine. Her latest book is Bonk: the Curious Coupling of Science and Sex.

In this conversation with D.J. Grothe, Mary Roach reveals why she looks to science rather than to religion for answers about death and sex, and why she is interested in such topics in the first place. She talks about the history of sex research, including Leonardo Da Vinci’s anatomical explorations of coitus, as well as 19th century sex research connected to fertility and STDs. She talks about religious opposition to scientific research of human sexuality, and how it affects funding. She describes some on Alfred Kinsey’s research that showed the diversity of sexual activity in the United States. She details various scientific attempts to improve human sexuality, including grafting additional testicles on men, or surgically relocating women’s clitorises. She explores the role of the placebo effect in certain sexual cures, such as for impotence or increased arousal. And she talks about the link between sexual satisfaction and overall happiness.

The Mary Roach book “Bonk” was, as all of her books, fast moving and hysterically funny. (I also recommend her books “Spook” and “Stiff”.) She is fearless and fun. She travels the world in her research, doing obscure and strange things in all her books. For this book, she had sex with her husband in a hospital lab while a doctor imaged them in real time. Her ploy to get her husband to agree to this was funny (“Gee honey, you know how you’ve always wanted to visit England? Well an opportunity has come up. We just have to stop by a hospital laboratory for a short time.”) It’s a great summer read, full of fascinating little known facts.

First, the word homosexual is generally considered offensive due it its clinical history (which is why the word gay was adopted in the first place) and here in 2009 it sounds as foreign and outdated a label as coloreds.

Second, with such anti-gay vitriol I’m impressed that you can stomach even listening to a podcast hosted by an openly gay man like D.J..

First, the word homosexual is generally considered offensive due it its clinical history (which is why the word gay was adopted in the first place) and here in 2009 it sounds as foreign and outdated a label as coloreds.

I’m honestly confused, as I was always taught that the word gay was a slur. Even today in our local schools, if a student says the word gay, the student is immediately suspended for hate speech. Even if they do not direct the word at someone, it’s part of their zero tolerance policy. However, there is no punishment for using the word homosexual, which is considered a valid medical term. This is what has me confused.

Which word should I teach my child to use? We’ve discussed how families come in all shapes and sizes. Some kids have single parent homes, some have parents that are a mom and dad, some have two dads or two moms, some kids live with an aunt or uncle, or grandparent, and some live in foster homes.

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Some people can read War and Peace and come away thinking it’s a simple adventure story. Others can read the ingredients on a chewing gum wrapper and unlock the secrets of the universe. - Lex Luthor

First, the word homosexual is generally considered offensive due it its clinical history (which is why the word gay was adopted in the first place) and here in 2009 it sounds as foreign and outdated a label as coloreds.

I’m honestly confused, as I was always taught that the word gay was a slur. Even today in our local schools, if a student says the word gay, the student is immediately suspended for hate speech. Even if they do not direct the word at someone, it’s part of their zero tolerance policy. However, there is no punishment for using the word homosexual, which is considered a valid medical term. This is what has me confused.

Which word should I teach my child to use? We’ve discussed how families come in all shapes and sizes. Some kids have single parent homes, some have parents that are a mom and dad, some have two dads or two moms, some kids live with an aunt or uncle, or grandparent, and some live in foster homes.

There is a problem with the pejorative use of the word gay (“that’s so gay”), which schools tend to frown on, but the word is otherwise acceptable and is the word of choice within the gay community. As for homosexual… it is simply not used as a class name within the gay community. In fact, I don’t think I have ever heard it used as such by any of the gay men I have ever known.

“I…I think it’s finally over. My reactionary emotional response seems to have stopped them dead in their tracks. If I’m right, all I have to do now is smugly reiterate my half-formed thesis and—oh, no! For the love of God, no! Their thoughtfully mulling things over!

Run! Run! Their making reasonable, fact-based arguments!

Quickly! Hide behind self-righteousness! The ad hominem rejoinders—ready the ad hominem rejoinders! Watch out! Dodge the issue at hand! Question their character and keep moving haphazardly from one flawed point to the next!”

“I…I think it’s finally over. My reactionary emotional response seems to have stopped them dead in their tracks. If I’m right, all I have to do now is smugly reiterate my half-formed thesis and—oh, no! For the love of God, no! Their thoughtfully mulling things over!

Run! Run! Their making reasonable, fact-based arguments!

Quickly! Hide behind self-righteousness! The ad hominem rejoinders—ready the ad hominem rejoinders! Watch out! Dodge the issue at hand! Question their character and keep moving haphazardly from one flawed point to the next!”

Someone’s been reading either Pharyngula or The Onion

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Some people can read War and Peace and come away thinking it’s a simple adventure story. Others can read the ingredients on a chewing gum wrapper and unlock the secrets of the universe. - Lex Luthor

I’ll have a six hour flight to California and back in August. I’m going to be packing some entertaining books for the flights, and for poolside. The Olivia Judson book looks like a fun poolside read while my kid goes down the water slide over and over , and my sister and I soak up some sun.

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Some people can read War and Peace and come away thinking it’s a simple adventure story. Others can read the ingredients on a chewing gum wrapper and unlock the secrets of the universe. - Lex Luthor